DJANGO SAYS DICAPRIO IS GOOD AND CHAINED UP - Page 2

Dude was gutted, man.

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Originally Posted by Francis Wolcott 

I'm gonna go ahead here and say I flat out love the first half of Death Proof. Two persons!

*raises hand*

Am I late? I didn't realize there was a meeting today. Is that the coffee over there?

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Originally Posted by t3cii 

A bit gutted to see DiCaprio in the role of Marvin Candie. Woefully miscast.

I have to agree with this as I've read the script and also don't see it.  It's not that DiCaprio would be bad in the part, it's that I see the delicious possiblities with the character as written, and based on Leo's past work, think that QT could have done so much better, so it is dissapointing.  I feel like he's in a star fucking phase of his career right now and it's probably blinding his instincts.  I also thought Pitt was a bit miscast in Basterds, though he did a decent enough job.  Leo as Candie is not going to ruin the movie, but I will be sitting there thinking "oh what could have been"...unless of course Leo murders it and surprises the hell outta me, but I don't see that happening.
 

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Originally Posted by Greg Clark 

Put it another way: Tarantino went after Daniel Day Lewis for Vince in Pulp Fiction. DDL turned it down. QT went with his second choice, John Travolta. If the internet had existed then, the screams would have been nigh unthinkable. But look what that got us.

Or imagine if the internet were around when Henry Fonda was cast as the villain in Once Upon a Time in the West? It's pretty obvious that Tarantino is aiming for that type of perception altering role for Dicaprio. Dicaprio is someone that has a very defined image and while he tends to play somewhat brooding characters he has been the leading man we're supposed root for quite some time now. I have no doubt in my mind that it will PLAY, and while I refuse to read the script something tells me the way we perceive Dicaprio will add a lot of weight to the character.

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Originally Posted by Mangy 

"Gutted"? Hahaha

Did I use that wrong? It's such a fun sounding word. Same with "woefully miscast", a phrase I remember someone once used when describing Keanu Reeves. That always stuck with me, for some reason, so I brought it out.

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Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

Saying that QT, the guy who wrote the (possibly out-of-date) script, has woefully miscast a role when you have NO idea what revisions/alterations/approach the man is taking, is irritating bullshit. This character originated with him. I think he may know what will and won't work for the story he has in mind.

 

EDIT: Just to expand so as not to come across as being rude: you're second-guessing one of the most gifted film-makers of our time based on one building block of the finished film. This is why I have a generally negative view of reading scripts before release - you've let one element of the finished poduct dictate your reaction to it. You now have an idea of Calvin Candie that QT has to live up to. You can try and argue that's not the case, but it's pretty obvious from your reaction to this news. It's such an assbackwards way to approach an upcoming film. You're putting your film-making insincts on a higher pedestal than those of the guy who wrote the script!

Again, I don't think I'm placing any film instincts I might have on a higher pedestal than those of Tarantino. But as I've said before, and will keep saying, I'm basing my opinion on how he presented the character in the script. If he's telling me to expect one thing, obviously I'm going to be disappointed if he presents something very different. I have no reason to assume he's going to rewrite the character.  Maybe he will, I guess we'll have to wait and see. But it won't be the character I came to despise from the script, and I think I'd miss that character if that's the case. If most of you want to trust Tarantino on this, go ahead.  Anyways, my opinion really isn't worth getting irritated over, and I'm sure you can all agree to that.

So, sensing that maybe people have had enough talking about DiCaprio, why not talk about the rest of the cast? Has Waltz been confirmed yet? The character was almost certainly written with him in mind. I'm sure he will be great in it, it's a role that commands attention much the same way Hanz Landa commands attention, but much more heroic and sympathetic. My only concern would be that the character tends to outshine the lead role. That might have been why Smith turned it down, since he'd be playing straight man to Waltz for much of the movie.

Samuel L. Jackson I believe is playing the role of Stephen, and much like Waltz, the role reads as if it was written specifically for him. Other than that, I'm not sure how many other Tarantino alumni we can expect to pop up in this movie. Possibly Michael Madsen as Ace Woody,

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Originally Posted by hexx462 

 

Or imagine if the internet were around when Henry Fonda was cast as the villain in Once Upon a Time in the West?

That did cross my mind, and I suppose since this is a western (or Southern, as Tarantino calls it) that would be what he has in mind.

"If he's telling me to expect one thing..." Uh, he's not telling you ANYTHING. You read an illegally leaked script that's probably been rewritten by now. It's your own fault, not his.

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Originally Posted by Chris Spider 

I dunno, Pitt's ridiculous Southern accent worked in Basterds, didn't it? I can see DiCaprio having a similar kind of fun with that kind of exaggerated voice.

Pitt was born in Oklahoma and raised in Missouri.  While his accent in Basterds may have been exaggerated I didn't find it unconvincing.  Look at how he portrayed Jesse James in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.  You don't have to do Foghorn Leghorn to convey a convincing "Southern" accent as the term itself is a catch-all for a wide range of different speech patterns.

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Originally Posted by Bancroft Agee 

Pitt was born in Oklahoma and raised in Missouri.  While his accent in Basterds may have been exaggerated I didn't find it unconvincing.  Look at how he portrayed Jesse James in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.  You don't have to do Foghorn Leghorn to convey a convincing "Southern" accent as the term itself is a catch-all for a wide range of different speech patterns.

 

Oh, I'm well aware of that. It's just that since this is apparently a spaghetti Western, exaggeration tends to be the order of the day, so I was merely wondering if DiCaprio might do a more heightened accent rather than attempting to do a realistic one.

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Originally Posted by Chris Spider 

Uh, he's not telling you ANYTHING.

Alright, he was presenting one thing.

Which has no bearing on the topic.

There's no reason to assume that, but okay.

"Fault"? What, that I'm expecting the character to be how he described him?

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Originally Posted by t3cii 

 

Alright, he was presenting one thing.

 

Which has no bearing on the topic.

 

There's no reason to assume that, but okay.

 

"Fault"? What, that I'm expecting the character to be how he described him?

 

C'mon... don't let your feelings about DiCaprio (which I understand) lead you down this path of mulishness.

Of course there's a reason to assume the script has been rewritten. Y'know why? It happens ALL THE TIME. And I say "your fault" because it's up to Tarantino to decide whether or not to go in a different direction with a character. Should we really be thinking we can do better than him?

At this point, I'm about ready to throw up my hands and point back to what Greg Clark said earlier: Tarantino knows what the fuck he's doing.

Unless Tarantino handed you the script to get your opinion on it, you have no right to make any value judgments on it as a finished piece of art. You took a sneak peek at a work in progress. If you are going to judge the finished project on information you shouldn't have been privy to in the first place, your disappointment is entirely your own fault.

I love the Henry Ford example. Great way to make the argument not to typecast. I just saw "Once Upon a Time in the West" for the first time this summer, and after getting used to perceiving Fonda as one of my favourite honourable and endearing actors from movies like "12 Angry Men" and "The Lady Eve", I was really amazed by what a convincing lousy bastard he made. He seemed like such a completely different person, barely recognizable, and not just because those other movies were black and white and made so many years earlier. If that nervous twerp from "12 Angry Men" and "The Lady Eve" could become a dangerous, rotten sonofabitch someday, so could Gilbert Grape's goofy little brother.

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Originally Posted by t3cii 

That did cross my mind, and I suppose since this is a western (or Southern, as Tarantino calls it) that would be what he has in mind.

 

Right, and it's a pretty god damned great concept isn't it?
 

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Originally Posted by Bancroft Agee 

Pitt was born in Oklahoma and raised in Missouri.  While his accent in Basterds may have been exaggerated I didn't find it unconvincing.  Look at how he portrayed Jesse James in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.  You don't have to do Foghorn Leghorn to convey a convincing "Southern" accent as the term itself is a catch-all for a wide range of different speech patterns.

 

I found it decent, but a bit unconvincing. But that is because I live about 10 miles from Maynardville, Tennessee. When I think of Southern accents I think of Smokey from Band of Brothers. Mountain twang is different from deep fried twang.  But again, it didn't pull me out of the movie.

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Originally Posted by Sebastian OB 

Unless Tarantino handed you the script to get your opinion on it, you have no right to make any value judgments on it as a finished piece of art. You took a sneak peek at a work in progress. If you are going to judge the finished project on information you shouldn't have been privy to in the first place, your disappointment is entirely your own fault.

People were criticizing Foxx's casting without knowing anything about the character other than he was a former slave, and were making statements about DiCaprio being "perfect for the role" without knowing who the character was, what he was about, and if he really was perfect for the role. No one had a problem with that. Why is this different? And who said anything about the finished project? I was saying I thought DiCaprio would be miscast in this. I might be wrong. But wasn't basing my opinion purely on a dislike for DiCaprio as an actor the way people are with Foxx's casting.

I think that's all I'll say on the matter. I've derailed this thread enough already.

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Originally Posted by MrTyres 

 

I found it decent, but a bit unconvincing. But that is because I live about 10 miles from Maynardville, Tennessee. When I think of Southern accents I think of Smokey from Band of Brothers. Mountain twang is different from deep fried twang.  But again, it didn't pull me out of the movie.

 

 

I grew up in Kentucky near the Bootheel of Missouri but live in Tennessee myself now.  I think both you and I can say that using "Southern" accent as a catchall is a poor choice but I see your point.  Don't get me started on some of the attempted accents on Justified though.

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Originally Posted by Chris Spider 

Oh, I'm well aware of that. It's just that since this is apparently a spaghetti Western, exaggeration tends to be the order of the day, so I was merely wondering if DiCaprio might do a more heightened accent rather than attempting to do a realistic one.

 

I can see that and it could work.  I just wonder how far out there and over the top Tarantino tends to push his "Southern".  It's going to be interesting to see the world he creates considering the subject matter.  Like it or not, people are going to be touchy (both liberal and conservative) when bringing up some of the subject matter he intends to trod upon so the tone he sets is going to be interesting.

I don't remember if there was any backlash over Basterds from anyone but that movie was firmly and plainly set as a fairy tale from the start with WWII trappings.

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Originally Posted by Bancroft Agee 

  Don't get me started on some of the attempted accents on Justified though.

 

 

I love Justified, but you are so right.   Plus, I have a hard time not thinking Arlo is about to scream, "Raylan, you just halved your brother."

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Originally Posted by t3cii 

"Fault"? What, that I'm expecting the character to be how he described him?

 

You do realize that there is absolutely NO physical description of Calvin Candie in the script, right?  The ONLY description given of him at all is that he is a "powerful white man".  That's it.  No description of how he dresses, his age, physical features, nada.

Just because you pictured him as an old man does not mean that Quentin wrote him that way. 

Once again, DiCaprio is not who popped into my head while I was reading the script.  I was seeing someone like Keith Carradine or Peter Fonda.  The reason I pictured them had nothing to do with age and everything to do with persona and attitude.  A quiet cool masking hostility.  Hell, the Henry Fonda comparison earlier in the thread is pretty apt.  I really have no problem picturing Leo in the role though.  Quentin tends to shy away from physical descriptions in his scripts, instead allowing his dialogue to dictate the character.  For the most part, he usually leaves the appearance and physicality for whoever he cast to come up with on their own.

Huh, I guess I did know some peeps who like the first half of Death Proof. I just didn't know I knew.

I enjoy Death Proof as a whole, but I certainly like it the least of the QT-directed films (unless we're counting Four Rooms, in which case that one is at the bottom of the list).

Also, I'll second the notion that the only casting misstep that Quentin made/makes is casting himself in Death Proof.  He's fine in small roles like Dogs and Pulp..............and seems to work well in his appearances for RR (Desperado, Dawn, Terror).  That aside, he was gratingly awful as Warren the bartender.

I think, beginning to end, Death Proof succeeds where no other grindhouse-revival film has: in that it actually feels like a non-ironic grindhouse flick. The other ones got the film scratches, the over the top violence, and a tongue so firmly in cheek it's about to bust through the skin, but they all feel like modern movies playing dress up and using a snickering giggle as a defense for not actually being very good at all (looking at you, HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, and looking at you, people who like HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN). Death Proof--especially the first half--understood that to emulate a grindhouse flick, you had to use the same technique as a grindhouse flick. Long, boring conversations to pad out the time before they got to the part they saved their money for. The first half, the women's only concern is drugs, sex, and booze, and while they're all quite the lookers, they're all kind of awful, so you don't feel TOO bad when they get offed. In the 70's, even though Stuntman Mike is the bad guy, he's the hero to the people watching these things.

The second half is a deconstruction, where the modern women turn the tables on Stuntman Mike and make him pay for his crimes. It also reveals Stuntman Mike to be more than a little bit of an emasculated pussy, which I've always read as QT's take on the kinds of people who cheer for the objectified violence against women in the countless slashers that serve up tits, then ram a knife/axe/machete/car through them for some sort of twisted satisfaction. It also has the hands down best car chase scene of the last decade.

In short, I think Death Proof is awesome. Tarantino's got a handle on his shit. Internet still needs to chill the hell out.

DEATH PROOF does not play like a legitimate grindhouse film. Grindhouse films do not spend a chunk of their running time making meta commentary about themselves. Also, they tend to have boobs.  

Well I didn't like the first half of "Death Proof" either, except the strip tease, which I hear wasn't even in the theatrical release. Tarantino really needs someone to reign him in. I think one of the reasons "Pulp Fiction" was and still is his best script is because he had a co-writer to balance things out a bit. Now that he's writing everything solo and his editor is gone, I'd be worried that his tendency to overwrite will go unchecked and make his movies more like that first half of "Death Proof", which I consider Tarantino at his worst. The final sequence with the cars was like a breath of fresh air after a long, long, oppressive slog. 

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Originally Posted by Sebastian OB 

Grindhouse films do not spend a chunk of their running time making meta commentary about themselves. Also, they tend to have boobs.  

THANK YOU.
 

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Originally Posted by Sebastian OB 

Grindhouse films do not spend a chunk of their running time making meta commentary about themselves. Also, they tend to have boobs.  

DAMN YOU.

Double thank you. Death Proof just didn't work.

The Avery comment (ie Pulp Fiction had an extra writer) take is interesting and I never really gave it much credence before but looking at QT's work I sort of have to agree. The man has loads of talent obviously but some of his work (Kill Bill Vol 1, Death Proof, The non Landa stuff in Basterds) comes off rough around the edges and unfocused.

Here is hoping for the best with Django.

Is anyone else hoping we get to hear the original Django theme song a copious amount of times in this movie? I've warmed up to the idea of Jamie Foxx as Django. I still think he's a twat, but he was very good in Collateral and Miami Vice. Leonardo Dicaprio as a southern slaver owner sounds like aces to me.

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Originally Posted by Johnny Daywalker 

The Avery comment (ie Pulp Fiction had an extra writer) take is interesting and I never really gave it much credence before but looking at QT's work I sort of have to agree. The man has loads of talent obviously but some of his work (Kill Bill Vol 1, Death Proof, The non Landa stuff in Basterds) comes off rough around the edges and unfocused.

There is some truth to this.  That said, I'd take solo QT over solo Avery any day of the week.

That is truth no doubt.

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Originally Posted by t3cii 

People...were making statements about DiCaprio being "perfect for the role" without knowing who the character was, what he was about, and if he really was perfect for the role.

 

Literally no-one has said that. People were positive because QT had cast a great actor. That's it.